Microsoft has officially launched Windows Live Hotmail, the new incarnation of Hotmail under the Windows Live brand.

What's that? You've forgotten what Hotmail is? Oh come on, you remember. It's that free, web-based email app that you secured your first embarrassing email address handle with (I'm looking at you, strangelove45) to match your equally embarrassing AIM screen name. Right, the one with all the spam and the low storage threshold that left you cleaning up your inbox daily lest an important email bounce. The one you had before you switched over to Gmail.

Well, if you were hardcore enough to stick with Hotmail all this time (or too afraid to switch), you've finally been rewarded with a 2005-quality web-based email account. Or maybe I'm being to hard on old Hotmail. It's actually a little better than that.

Windows Live Hotmail offers 2GB of storage, a fancy-pants AJAX interface (including some enviable drag-and-drop features), the much wished-for in Gmail Sort by size function, and a poorly integrated (but integrated, nonetheless) calendar. It's also got keyboard shortcuts, but they're limited and not all that friendly (revolving around the square brackets). In all, Windows Live Hotmail looks like an all right email app if you just can't give up on Hotmail, but it's definitely not enough to justify going back to Hotmail for anyone who's left for greener pastures.